Orioles' rookie starter Zach Britton has seemingly hit a bit of a bump in the road. His last victory was on May 1st in Chicago, and that includes last night's 8-4 loss at the hands of the Toronto Blue Jays. (I would also point out that Britton has three no-decisions in that span of time, so this isn't to say that he's turned into a total screw-up by any means.) As I look around the major leagues and see teams giving young guys their first major league starts, they don't always turn out so good. As an example, Danny Duffy of the Kansas City Royals got hit pretty hard in his first major league start against Texas. In his second start (against the Orioles), he definitely righted himself. On the other hand, Britton (and most of the young Oriole starters in the past couple of seasons) threw a gem in his first few starts. Perhaps fans got away with thinking that it would always be this easy. It's normal for a young pitcher to hit a snag in the road like this. There are two ways to look at this; either the league has adjusted a bit to Britton, or his sinker just didn't sink last night. My vote would be both. Pick out who you feel the greatest pitcher of all time would be (for me it's Nolan Ryan), and that guy'll tell you that there'll be games where your pitches just don't hit their mark. If that's happened to the greatest pitchers of all time, it's bound to happen to Britton. I suspect that between now and his next start Britton will sit down with Mark Connor and together they'll evaluate where things went wrong mechanically and get it remedied. That's the part that fans don't see (players and coaches sitting in the video room watching film). At the same time, Connor will probably help Britton to adjust to the adjustments that the league has made against him.
My personal opinion is that the book on Britton probably goes something to the effect that if he's missing his marks, swing at will. Interestingly, this is similar to the book on Cliff Lee. Last year I wrote a column for the former outlet for whom I wrote regarding how the Orioles were able to defeat Cliff Lee twice when he played for Texas. Lee's pitches are good...really good. And they're difficult to hit without a doubt. However one thing that he doesn't do is employ a lot of late movement (for the most part he doesn't need to). So if you're a patient team like the Yankees or Red Sox, Lee will simply turn your batters away while you wait for the "right pitch." Instead, a team like the Orioles that comes up hacking has an advantage because most of Lee's pitches are in the zone.
While the Orioles were already trailing 3-0 at the time, Britton was effectively done in by a big bop in the fifth inning by Toronto catcher J.P. Arencibia. Unfortunately for Britton, the bases were loaded at the time so it was a grand slam (the first in Arencibia's career). So with the O's trailing 7-0 they managed to push across a couple of runs in the last of the inning, along with one more for Toronto in the top of the sixth. However come the last of the eighth Matt Wieters led off with a single and brought J.J. Hardyto the plate. Hardy sent a homer over the wall, cutting the lead to 8-4 for Toronto. While that did give the Birds a shot in the arm, they can only hope that they're able to catch that lightning in a bottle and continue the momentum into tonight's game. The Blue Jays took the first game of the series by that 8-4 score. The Orioles do have a chance to break a streak that doesn't bode well for them at the moment. MASN's Gary Thorne pointed out that the last eight series' between these two teams have been sweeps. That's a bizzare stat, however if it continues that means the O's are done for the weekend.
Jake Arrieta gets the ball tonight against Ricky Romero. Wonderful, another lefty to face the O's. I wonder if other teams don't bring up southpaws just to face the Birds. One would assume that Luke Scott will probably be on the bench tonight which means that either Nolan Reimold or Felix Pie (who played left field last night) will be in left. Arrieta will be looking to rebound from arguably the worst start of the season on Monday in Seattle. Of course if you listen to certain media outlets (not to name names -- ASSOCIATED PRESS!) the Orioles have no chance in this game. However Arrieta was very impressive in his only outing against the Blue Jays last September. In the Orioles' 11-3 win, Arrieta gave up four hits and struck out five (over six innings). I suppose I should get out my anti-Cito Gaston memorabilia before making my way to the yard.
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